 Engage in issue-based campaigns ahead of 2023 polls. Buhari urges politicians tonight on civic education will discuss the necessity of issue-based campaigns. And a Senate Ignores partisanship allegation confirms 19 resident electoral commissioners. This is Plus Politics. My name is Nyam Ghul Aghajig. President Mohammed Buhari has advised all candidates in the 2023 general election to engage in issue-based campaigns while selling their candidacy to the Nigerian public. The president welcomed the initiative undertaken by the National Peace Committee to commit all political actors to issue-based campaigns devoid of incitement, personal insults and attacks. In a video message to the signing of the 2023 election piece accord by the presidential candidates organized by the National Peace Committee in Abuja, the president appealed to the contestants, especially their publicity agents and media advisors, to shun personal attacks, avoid insults and incitements, reject the spread of fake news and commit to issue-based campaigns and political rallies. He warned that the rise of fake news and misinformation have continued to pose a significant threat to democracy in Nigeria. Also, the Center for Research on Development of Africa, Media, Governance and Society and Positive Agenda Nigeria report on the 2023 presidential election campaign monitoring indicated that the talking points of political actors are still largely not issue-based, even in the first few weeks of campaign. Joining us live to discuss these is Biodun Shawami, a political analyst and Wemimo Adewumi broadcast journalist. Glad to have you, lady and gentlemen, join us on the program. Thank you for having me. Okay, we move right ahead to the issue-based campaign that has been spoken about by the president. And we're just concerned about why it is such an issue this time around. Because we've gone like 16 years or more, 20-something years, and we've been having it our way, the Nigerian way. We talk at the hour, we do whatever we want to do. But this year, it seems to be very, very strong on the front burner, and we're wondering why. Why is it really so important for us to break away from the usual thing we do in Nigeria and just say whatever we want to say in selling our candidates to issue-based campaign? Why is it so necessary now? Let me start with you, Wemimo, for this opener. Well, thank you. First of all, let me remind Nigerians that this is a very important election. As the constitution rightly states, no government can run for more than two terms. President Mohamed Ibuheri has been president for two terms now. So he's definitely not coming back. So he's not a contestant in next year's election. This means that it's time for a fresh face, a fresh person who has never been president to have a chance to undergrow at him. This means that it's another chance for people to pull forward their ethnic biases, religious biases, trying to push their interests. Remember that politics is all about interests. So this is a time where you see interests being pushed forward from different political parties, different states, different ethnic groups, religions, and so on. Now, at times like this, expectantly you would find that emotions will run wild. You'll find that people would throw everything they know at their opponents to try to get the attention of the man who has the voter card. Because at the end of the day, everything is about voting, about the previous state, about that person who drops the vote in the ballot. So anything to get attention, anything to look better, to sound wiser, smarter, I think we're just even starting. Okay, let me come to you, Mr. Xiaomi. This is a challenge that has been thrown by the president to the political class and asking them to run issue-based campaigns. Do you see them able to do this, knowing that some of these things that we talk against, a lot of people have said that politicians are using them to their own benefit. Do you think that they are capable or they will accept to even do this in practice? Yeah, thank you very much. What we all need to accept is this, that religion and ethnic issues have always played a role either in formation of political parties or the way the affairs of political parties are conducted. It has never gotten to a stage like the, in the past. Now we have an advent of a new technology which is beating the worker, those who are bent on doing their job the way it's supposed to be done. I would say precisely that is the public city secretaries of political parties and they are spin doctors and spin doctors are the media consultants or all those who are hooked on the internet or any other means or device to project their candidates in good life. Yes, the president is probably concerned about the trend of events which in some cases is taking ethnic dimension, in some cases religious dimension. And because of that, the president has to be concerned about the trajectory of the process that is ongoing. So within that context one can understand from the view of Mr. Preston since the nature of the spinning is capable of upsetting the structures in the country which in a way can lead to serious violence in some cases. So Mr. Preston has the chief security of the country has the right to be concerned about that. But it also shows that Mr. President has not fully appreciated the role of the public city secretaries and media consultants. The fact of the matter is those are the people concerned if you go and check whatever is going on in the country in relation to trying to portray candidates in good or bad way. They are the work of spin doctors. Those are the people working behind the scenes. They are determined to project their candidates into black. What do we mean by spin? Spin is basically trying to present your candidate or your course in a positive way. And because of that, we now have all manners of things coming in during that process. There's nothing wrong in interrogating people. When you say your candidate is good or your candidate is competent, the opponents of your candidates have the right to interrogate that candidate to see whether they could bring out some other thoughts or to validate the claim or disprove it. In the same way, you realize that the issue of campaign it's about just like in a marketplace where goods are sold. So it's like a marketplace of ideas where all our ideas must be allowed and then to try no matter how odious those ideas are because any attempt to curtail it will mean curtailing freedom of speech. And if you suppress freedom of speech, we are going to run into another problem. You're likely going to have people who are disaffected with politics or disaffected with society being driven underground. That is the reason why in United States of America today, the Ku Klux Klan has not been driven underground. They are allowed to market their ideas and then superior ideas will overcome it. That is exactly the same reason why the British National Party in UK has not been driven underground. They are allowed with their extremist positions to sell their ideas. And then society has a way of ensuring that more and more trade positions triumph. And the asking people to focus on issues based campaign is basically asking them to talk about the policies of the candidates, what do they want to do, how would they do it, and how would they pay for it? Those are the... OK, Mr. Showami, just a moment. A lot of people would even accuse the president, the sitting president, the incumbent president, that in his days in 2015 and 2019, the same issues that he's preaching against, as it were, were the same ones that he used and his team used in their campaigning. Do you think there are some lessons, there might be some lessons that have been lent by the president himself that is making him to preach against them now in this election? Because ethnicity, religion, all the things that he's talking about that people should drop and talk about issues that are affecting the country, whether it wants that they're used as well. So do you think he has lent some lessons, and if you think so, what are these lessons that they might... that may be? Well, I think Mr. President is concerned about the implications of some of the things being found out that could affect ethnic relations. And for him, that may be a very serious issue. Number one, being a retired military general and two being the president of the country. But it also... Yes, I agree. That was exactly what happened when he won the election in 2019. The spin doctors were at war and a lot of things were found out which portray the density in president like a drunk or a clueless man. And one way or the other, they probably believed the spinning and then Jonathan had to be replaced. The fact of the Matthias, this is the nature of politics. And so we don't want to address this issue. When you go... Let me give you a very good example. In United States of America, I mean, that's where they've been practicing democracy for a long time. In the state of Massachusetts in 2010, when election was to be held to replace Senator Edward Kennedy, one of the candidates of the Republican Party was portrayed in the bad light by the Democratic Party. What they simply did was to send an advert to people in their own homes, saying that if they vote for him that is stood for women not being allowed, women who were raped, not being allowed to abort the rape. And they gave the figure of over 1,960 people in 2008 who were raped and that if he was voted for, those women would not be able to have abortion. But whereas it was true there was a debate which he voted for. He voted for the debate was not, the bill was not actually about not treating women who were raped. The bill was about allowing workers who are so religious like Catholics, who said, well, they are not allowed to administer contraception on people, to exempt them so that other workers can do it. So you can see how they were between spinning and lying. And that is still going on in United States of America. It's the nature of politics. They have to pick the media advisors, media consultants, you know, they have to work and present their candidate in positive light. There is no country where that does not happen. And the worry is always that it could stretch, you know, the fiber holding the old society together. That has always been the fear, but it is worse if that is not allowed because we are likely going to drive them, dissenting views on the ground. There are people who don't even agree with this process at all. At least between some of the people who are supporting them, now embracing, you know, democracy, now embracing the issue of elections. So, and it's part of the process. If we drive them down, or government tries to feta, you know, freedom of speech, what you are likely going to see is that people, you know, begin to suspect the electoral process. So it's a marketplace of idea. It also promotes citizens, you know, feelings of fulfillment through public participation. If the public are able to express their mind, say what they like, you know, it's a free market place of ideas. And at the end of the day, all selection is conducted, it will not declare that hence the old debate. And that is always what happened. So what we should do, we have to be careful about, is what Mr. President wants us to do, would also mean, you know, creating more progress for the country in terms of, you know, furthering dissenting views and also in terms of driving dissenting views on the ground. That should not happen. We should allow issues to be discussed, but also at the same time, we should allow other views to be had, no matter how unpleasant those views are. Okay. Well, that means we have to draw a line between what we will call free speech and what is not free speech because not every free speech should come to the public domain. But let me come to when we're more... No, wait, wait, wait. Just a minute. Just a minute. Just a minute. Even in United States of America, aid speech is allowed. It's part of free speech. Any attempt to alter free speech, you know, or to try and moderate it, is no longer free speech. Aid speech is allowed. Please, we can check this out. Okay. I'm not saying that should be the norm, but I'm only saying that free speech should be unfettered. Okay, well, we might have to get back to that if there's more time to talk about this. But Wemimo, let me come to you. When we're talking about making sure that this campaign is issue-based, what really are these issues that Nigerians need to be listening to instead of what the president is condemning? Okay, let me firstly re-emphasize what the first speaker said. Elections, it's like marketing, right? And for effective marketing, you need an effective PR team. Now there will be solicited and unsolicited PR teams, which would include people that are recruited by the political parties and the candidates, as well as the unsolicited people who just like them or share the same belief system as the candidates or the political parties. Now, more importantly, what are the issues Nigerians should be looking at? Economy is stopped on the front burner. For anybody in Nigeria, our inflation rate is totally out of bounds. Unemployment rate is shooting out of the roof. We need to deal specifically with that issue of production. Clearly, this government has done something really good with, for instance, the rise. Nigeria is now the largest producer of rice in Africa. That's a very good thing. But we could do better because ultimately, it doesn't translate to more purchasing power for people on the streets. And if people do not have more purchasing power than whether we're selling the most rice or not would mean absolutely nothing. So we need to be looking at the issue of the economy. We need to focus also importantly on our petroleum subsidy removal. We've had governments in and out who come and talk about subsidy removal. In fact, in this present government, we've had subsidy removal removed. It's subsidy removed many times, yet it's still there. Their contemplation to finally remove it, possibly before the president leaves, was spending way beyond our budget in buying and subsidizing petrol as well as also repaying loans. The Nigerians taken, in fact, were net deep in loans. Now, there is no country in the world that is self-sufficient and loans are not necessarily a bad thing even for individuals and in businesses. However, when your income doesn't match your expenditure, you know, there is a red flag. So we need a candidate who knows how to handle the economy, who knows how to bring in the best heads that we have in Nigeria to resuscitate our really drowning economy. We also need to focus on education. Nigeria's got about 13 million out of schoolchildren. I think this is a very dice situation because it ties together with security. You find that in countries that are top of the human development index, education is very key. So countries where people do not go to school, where children especially do not go to school, you create a huge gap, therefore meaning that we cannot have them fill in an employment slot if any are available. If children are not in school, they are open books for boundaries, for kidnappers, for terrorists to recruit. That's how we see happening. If you look at the history of the Northeast and the Northwest, you find that as the nature began to dry up because of climate change, more and more young people had nothing to do. There was no fishing to be done. So there were easy recruits for terrorists. So if we're not dealing with education, if it's not important to us, then we're not really serious about building this country. ASU, for instance, has been on strike since February. Most federal government, all federal government universities have been on strike. They've been closed since February. I do not see a deliberate attempt to end this issue. The president spoke at the UN just some weeks ago, promising that Nigeria was going to do better in terms of our budgetary allocation to education. But our budgetary allocation for this year is even the lowest ever, about 5.6%. That's pretty low. Now, we're talking primary education, tertiary education. Acceptably, education is on the concurrent list, which means that states also have a huge role to play in this. Now, moving from education, I believe we also need to focus very importantly on the impact on the sloths that we give to women. I know we've had conversations about 35% for women. Women need to be more visible. I'd like to see women more visible in the incoming government in 2023. We have brilliant women in the economy in politics and finance and would like to see them featuring importantly in segments of this society. In our law-making bodies, the Senate, the House of Representatives, I'd like to see more women take off seats there so that we can have better laws that favor women. You can see the trend of our national assembly that builds that favor women easily trashed and understandably so when you have men who are patriarchal, they would trample on anything that makes women's voices louder. So we need women in the room to speak loudly for women in Nigeria and make the points count. Wash, that's what hygiene and sanitation is also very important for us in Nigeria. And this again ties up to the issue of women and girls. Menstruation today across many societies in Nigeria is still a harsh conversation, but it's a reality we cannot deny. Many people in Nigeria do not have portable water to drink. In fact, they do not even have access to water. So hygiene is poor, sanitation is poor. Remember that there's news that Ebola is back in Uganda. And one of the ways to make sure that you protect yourself from most of these viral diseases is washing your hands often. If you do not have water, how do you wash your hands? We need to pay attention to waste management. These are critical. There's a lot of things to be done. Electricity is also on the big table. I hear that Nigeria is working now to add about 800 megawatts to the national grid. I'm wondering what that will do for a population of over 200 million people. We're doing really poorly in generation, in transmission, in everything, distribution, we're doing really poorly. So we need candidates to speak directly to these issues, not just to tell us what the problem are, but based on the problems to tell us how the intent to solve these issues that we weigh candidates, buy candidates, and check also based on incident, who are passed to be better able and equipped to solve these challenges. Okay, just briefly, if you may. Over the years, we've seen people come out to talk about these things. These are the issues that you have outlined and many more there that you couldn't even have the time to outline. For instance, we remember a particular set of people who came and said that for the economy, the Naira will become one Naira to one dollar. We heard where they said that the fuel will be sold for very low, security will be top notch, and everything was promised Nigerians. What do you think these issues that will be discussed during campaigns, what is the max difference that this will have? What effect will it have on the general political space and the wellbeing of Nigerians during and after the elections? You see, one of the biggest problems I have with promises made by politicians is that it is unfortunately enabled by the constitution. Now, the things that are human rights, the things that should be easy access for citizens including education, all of your rights as a citizen, access to good roads to education and so on is on a chapter two of the Nigerian constitution which interestingly is not just teachable. What this means is that if a candidate comes to me and promises to fix my roads and if he becomes the governor or the president, if he refuses to do the things that he promised in his campaign, I cannot take him to court based on the promises he made. This matters need to move urgently from section two to section four of the Nigerian constitution. So it's one thing to make the promises. And I think that by now, after so many years, Nigerians should be able to decide who's just speaking from the tip of their tongue. Again, I've mentioned that it's beyond putting on what the problems are. A lot of Nigerians know what the problems are. I mean, do you need anyone to describe hunger to an hungry man? No, you need to look at the incident of the candidates point to point. They need to tell us how they're going to do it. Based on the unique situation that Nigeria is in. For instance, in security, the government has been doing quite some things. You've seen military moves, recapturing towns and fighting bandits. However, there's more to be done. We need to put more young people either in schools or in third employment. So we need to see people who tell us how. All right. All right, there are so many things that we could talk about. But in 30 seconds, if you may, let me start from Mr. Shoomi. We know that these things were directed at the political class, but they are not the ones who really fight. Is the ordinary man who may not even vie for any political post that fights. So there's also bound to be a message to the people who are going to be there casting their ballot and all that. So what do you say to Nigerians just before we wrap up this section, this segment first with you? Yeah, briefly, please. The point I've been trying to make is that you cannot separate free speech from issue-based campaigns because the only way except to interrogate people on their programs and policies, you will never be able to determine their competence. And that is crucial. For the electorates, the most important thing is people need to focus on what are the major issues affecting them. In my view, I don't think we can move forward without the structure in the country, but that may not be the view of what electorates. So the fact is they need to focus on key sectors of the economy, education, and find out what they intend to do. Nobody can come today and say, look, I'm going to have to make Naira equal to $1, then they should be asking them, are you about to go about it? You cannot say you are removing subsidy. In the first instance, is there a lease subsidy? Or is it a contraction which is put in place by the ruling class in the country? Okay, thank you very much. You have something, 30 seconds to just add before we go. To the electorate, please. Yes, I would say pay attention to the federal, to the presidential state, but also turn your eyes to the state and to your local government and the people you are electing into the national assembly and your state assemblies. They will be the ones that are closer to you and make the decisions that will affect you the most. So look at the presidential, but also focus on your state and local government. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Wemimo, for being a part of this program today. And Mr. Shoomi, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. So that was a view on Shoomi, a political analyst, and Wemimo Adewumi, also a broadcast journalist who joined us on the show. We'll take a short break now, we'll return in a moment.